Singapore Mandates Annuities
The government of this tiny Asian nation has confronted its collective longevity risk by requiring the purchase of annuities with defined contribution assets. Wharton pension expert Olivia Mitchell and...
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AXA Equitable Introduces Structured VA Product
AXA Equitable has put structured notes inside a variable annuity, giving investors tax-deferred exposure to small-cap, gold and oil indices for specific periods while capping their upside and buffering...
A New Designation Is Born: the RMA
The Retirement Income Industry Association (RIIA) announced the first recipients of its Retirement Management Analyst designation at its annual meeting last week.
How to Reach the Middle Class Investor
The Society of Actuaries has issued two new papers, one that shows advisors how to create income plans for non-affluent retirees and one that explains why the middle-class shuns...
Madoff’s Unsolved Mysteries
On September 26, Los Angeles moneyman Stanley Chais may have taken the secret of the Ponzi artist’s missing billions to his grave.
Craig Israelsen’s Seven Percent Solution
Think your clients need $1.25 million to retire comfortably? In a new book, advisor Craig Israelsen argues that they can live even better on less than $750,000.
Gorilla Marketing
In Manhattan and at the Jersey shore, AXA-Equitable Life staffers with a Flip camera interviewed passersby about retirement and posted the videos on YouTube. One man's retirement strategy: Meet...
Cog-nomics and B-Finance: What’s the Dif?
Behavioral finance is to cognitive economics as engineering is to physics, says the founder and CEO of inon.com, a UK pricing consultant.
‘Annuitize Part and Invest the Difference’
Using Period Certain, Life or Joint Life with Period Certain, or Installment Refund payouts, retirees can often create income solutions that require less investment than required by GLWBs to...
In-Plan Income, the Mutual of Omaha Way
Mutual of Omaha, in a program led by retirement plans product leader Tim Bormann, offers a deferred income annuity option called the Lifetime Guaranteed Income Account to small and...
The Pros and Cons of 401(k) Annuities
One witness at the DoL/Treasury hearings this week asserted that mandatory annuitization of DC assets at retirement is needed. The government, as well as sponsors and plan providers, have...
In Search of Safe Harbors
At this week’s hearing on in-plan income options, industry executives asked the DoL for several kinds of regulatory relief—especially a safer ‘safe harbor.’
Eight Ways to Simplify Retirement Accounts
The government “spends” $118 billion a year on tax-deferred accounts whose complexities discourage many people from using them, according to the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Meet Meir Statman
Click on the headline to watch a four-minute video of Meir Statman discussing his new book "What Investors Really Want," or to read several brief excerpts from the book...
My Tailor, My Fiduciary
The SEC could help investors distinguish between bespoke advice and off-the-rack advice that’s merely “suitable.”
Why We Need The Fiduciary Standard
It might rid the financial services marketplace of situations where the customer enters into transactions without knowing that there's an adversarial relationship, this well-known columnist believes.
Making The Case for Fixed Indexed Annuities
Jack Marrion and friends offer hard evidence that FIAs pay off when other investments don't. Their analysis is compelling, but I'm not ready to convert.
Transamerica Launches “Bridge” GLWB
The new Income Link rider pays out between 5% and 10% of the income base for a few years, then 4% for life. "It's designed for higher income in...
Why the Wealthy Should Buy SPIAs
A recent study by a doctoral candidate at the University of Virginia examines all of the reasons why people don't buy income annuities--and reveals two hidden reasons why they...
Process First, Not Product
When clients discover that products have been sold to them without the adequate use of process, some advisors will surely face a day of reckoning, says the president of...
